Passangers on a Norwegian flight got scared of a close encounter with another plane. Aircontrol says the planes were 300 meters apart, wich is considered acceptable,but passengers felt it was much closer.

See the picture taken by one of the passangers from the aircraft window and the other plane coming straight at them:

From my POV, it's more of a photographic illusion created to exaggerate the closeness of the other aircraft.

There is no Photoshop involved here just some clever optical illusion that fools the mind. A zoom lens compresses the distance between the subject in the foreground (winglet) and the background (aircraft). A longer zoom lens will result in greater compression. The FOV from a 50mm lens on a full frame 35mm camera is equivalent to what the human eye sees.

This optical illusion technique has been used as evidence in the International Court of Justice as well to fool the panel of judges

Quoting PGNCS (Reply 6):How are the passengers who felt this was too close in any way qualified to make this judgment?

It's important to remember, that not everyone is an aviation enthusiast and that for alot of people this insident might feel alot different than what it would have done for others who are more used to flying and into aviation.

Most likely the concern is coming from the fact that this is not a "normal" event you would experience on every flight you take, and certainly it could be a little concerning flying along and seeing the other guy coming at you knowing there are now stop signs up there .

In the flights I have done, where I have had access to the window I can only remember seeing small corporate jets below us and maybe some other commerical jets at approx the same altitude but going different directions (ie paths not crossing as in this example).

Then again, window seat on a 737 is more condusive for looking down than up for me.

God...I've had a ton of aircraft pass this close above and below. Also, last year on LAX-ATL, there was a DL 738 coming from our 12 o'clock at around...I don't know same flight level I guess, and the all-around separation was pretty low because you could see the livery very well. I think the pax over-reacted.

That's a winglet we're looking at? Which makes it a fairly long lens-- I'd say it's doubtful the 747 is only 1000 ft above. Could be the headings of the two aircraft were close enough to require 2000 ft altitude difference, which looks more likely. (And if not 2000 ft, 3000 looks more likely than 1000 ft.)

Quoting FLY2HMO (Reply 10):What shocks me most is that somebody actually noticed. Most (non-a.nut) people don't give a damn about looking out the window anymore, first thing they do is close the shades and shut there eyes.

Surprisingly, he said he noticed the contrails and took out the camera to get some "cool photos". So he must have been looking out for a while

“Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, an

That guy should have been flying with me in the C152, I would have showed him what a close encounter is :P

I love it when I see other airliners close when I'm flying - especially when we fly next to them, and when they fly the opposite way, the combined speed of us is over 1000KT - makes it look like a bullet

What goes up, must come down.

25 B707forever
: That CLT close call would have been posted by me. And frankly, the 737 I mentioned was closer than this picture, "for the record."

26 B747forever
: Me too. Was approximately so close to an Swiss air A330 over the Atlantic for about a month ago when I flew LAX-LHR. Was really funny actually!!

27 Francoflier
: Which is exactly why they shouldn't make a judgement until they have looked into the subject and are able to formulate an educated complaint. You wou

28 PilotRecruit
: You'd probably get a traffic call in that case, but no RA if both their vertical speeds are at least very close to zero or moving away from one anoth

29 Someone83
: This ins't news....however one idiot got his 15-minutes of fame